A Changed World
by StarSword-C
Summary: Star Trek Online Unofficial Literary Challenge 25: "Agents of Yesterday". USS Bajor is delivering supplies to an Iconian War refugee camp when they pick up a distress signal deep in a black hole's gravity well, and Captain Kanril Eleya is forced to confront her own species' ugly past.


**A Changed World**

 _(Woo)_  
 _Yes, sir_  
 _Pharoahe Monch, Black Violin_  
 _Although the lyrics are transparent, I am not invisible_  
 _Let's go_  
 _I'm not invisible_  
 _I'm not invisible_  
 _I'm not invisible it's not my fault you don't understand_  
 _You can pretend not to care_  
 _That won't make me disappear_  
 _As I rise it's clear_  
 _Here I stand_  
 _Here I am_

 _I am not invisible_  
 _We are at the precipice of a point that is pivotal_  
 _A criminal society of sick individuals_  
 _That murder is part of a ritual_  
 _Unconventional analog man in the digital world_  
 _Where there's no one to listen to_  
 _Where they kill us and show us the visuals_  
 _Images so unforgettable_  
 _Infidels give us the minimal amount while they're feeding us poisonous chemicals_  
 _We are not identical (No)_  
 _But I am not invisible (No)_  
 _You want me to vanish it's pitiful_  
 _And I don't understand your subliminal messages_  
 _Separatist, sentinels, criminals, I'm not invisible_

 _I'm not invisible_  
 _I'm not invisible_  
 _I'm not invisible it's not my fault you don't understand_  
 _You can pretend not to care_  
 _That won't make me disappear_  
 _As I rise it's clear_  
 _Here I stand_  
 _Here I am_

 _I'm not invisible_  
 _I'm not invisible_  
 _I'm not invisible it's not my fault you don't understand_  
 _You can pretend not to care_  
 _That won't make me disappear_  
 _As I rise it's clear_  
 _Here I stand_  
 _Here I am_  
— "Invisible" by Black Violin feat. Pharoahe Monch

I suckle absently on a jumja stick as stars and particles whip past on the viewscreen. Another day, another load of relief supplies for the refugee camp on Mariah IV.

Peace. A month on from Operation Mockingbird and it's still hard to believe the war is finally over.

Not sure how I feel about that: a good command-track Starfleet officer is supposed to be a scientist and a diplomat, not just a soldier, but my field of expertise was always violence, killing, no matter how much I hated it. But there's been no sign of any enemy activity since Iconia and most of the other powers from _this_ galaxy are still talking to us.

Peace. I don't have a clue what I'll do with myself.

I look over at Gaarra, sitting at the ops station. A small spot of dull yellow stands out in the center of the chain on his earring.

I reach up and touch my own, knowing one of the brass links is now silver.

He sneaks a look over his shoulder and I smile at him.

At least I don't have to figure it out alone.

A male voice intrudes on my thoughts. "Captain?" I glance over at Master Chief Wiggin and grunt in acknowledgement, still sucking the jumja stick. "I'm picking up a signal on the radio telescope. ELF range, extremely weak."

"ELF?"

"'Extremely Low Frequency', ma'am," Ensign Esplin helpfully supplies from the station to Wiggin's right. "They used to use it to send radio messages underwater."

"Magnetars sometimes put them out, too," Biri adds, coming over to look at the data. The little brown Trill leans over Wiggin's shoulder. "Where's it coming from?"

Wiggin throws a plot on the main viewscreen. "NGC-21997, black hole four light-years off our port bow."

"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupt. "A black hole? I mean, I only remember about a third of my Astronomy classes at the Academy but don't they usually put out stuff a lot higher-frequency than that?"

Biri grins at me. "Good guess. The accretion disk usually emits in the X-ray range."

I think for a minute. If it's not the accretion disk, then something else is producing the signal. It's gotta be outside the event horizon or else we wouldn't get it at all, but what could make something that weak?

Wait, maybe… "Wiggin, how long were we receiving the signal before Astrometrics flagged it for you?" He gives me a questioning look. "Just a hunch."

He shrugs and checks. "About twenty minutes."

"All right. Esplin, I want you to get the whole signal from Astro and increase the frequency to compensate for the gravitational redshift from the black hole."

"Oh, I see where you're going with this, Captain."

The Saurian quickly types out a series of commands as her boss gives me a surprised glance. I shrug. "Told you, I remembered some of my astronomy classes, Biri."

"Let's see, 37 solar masses produces redshift in the degree of…" She leans back. "You were right, ma'am."

"It's a ship?"

"Sending a distress signal, very badly distorted by the gravity well."

"Red alert! Park!" The black-haired man at Conn quickly steers us onto new heading as I turn to Esplin. "Ensign, text message to Starfleet Command and attach our data. 'USS _Bajor_ NCC-97238, responding to mayday from possible vessel trapped at NGC-21997. Requesting backup.'"

"Captain, something funny about the message though," Esplin interrupts me. I shove back the flash of annoyance at being interrupted and hand-signal her to go on. "The language, it's… Well, the universal translator has it grouped as an unencountered dialect of Bajoran."

Park points at the plot. "Closest Bajoran colony to here is—"

I quickly nod. "Dreon VII, I know; next closest is Volnar." Militia Space Arm made us memorize the locations of all Bajoran territorial possessions in Occupational Specialty School. "Send the message and let me hear the signal in original language mode."

Esplin nods and presses a couple keys. A female voice crackles through the interference. " _Ilyata kerim al wan bo tava! Mata ke kerim Shad'rakil Yima kossta fasa Bajor'sal Verda sora yal ire ta bo akarr ankaya! Ilyata kerim al wan—_ "

The Saurian cuts it off. "Message just repeats from there, ma'am."

"... ' _ire ta bo akarr ankaya_ '," I murmur. "Weird, it's _Bajor'ara_ , Old High Bajoran," I add for the others' benefit. "She's saying she's Colonel Shad Yima of the Militia scoutship _Verda_. They were attacked by… 'foreigners', I think, and their warp drive is out."

"Old High Bajoran, I don't know that one." Esplin sounds confused. "Where do they speak that on Bajor?"

"They don't," Gaarra answers. "Nobody uses it, 'cept the priests."

"Yeah, I only learned it because I went to temple school," I add. "Our main language _Bajor'la_ comes from a simplified version the Bajora created to communicate with their conquests back in the 10th century Earth Standard."

"Wait, what? I thought you were all Bajoran."

"Not 'Bajoran', 'Bajora'," Gaarra corrects Tess. "Neither of us is Bajora: Captain's Kendran, I'm half-Dahkuri. It's like… Well, like Lieutenant Park here being Korean."

"Oh, I see. So, why is it so weird for them to be speaking an old Bajoran dialect?"

"Well, as the Captain said," Esplin points out, "I'd expect a ship to send in Cardassian or Fed Standard around here, Ferengi even. Not everybody's translation gear is as good as ours."

"Right," I finish, "so why are they sending in a language that went out of use on our planet before the Occupation?"

* * *

I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this. "We're safe out here, right?"

Gaarra answers me, "Our structural integrity field can handle the gravity and the warp engines will keep our timeline clear of most of the time dilation effects. We won't lose more than a few hours relative as long as we don't stay too long."

"So we're safe, right?"

"It's a black hole, El," Biri simply says. "No guarantees, but I think the risk is acceptable." I stare at her and she bats her eyelashes at me. "Hey, if I'm wrong we'll never feel a thing."

Tess snorts. "If you're wrong I'll see you in Hell."

"Whatever. Conn, let's go." Park sets us on a course for what he's pinpointed as the source of the distress signal, still invisible on our sensors against the black spot the size of a small moon surrounded by a glowing blue disk.

My brain rebels at the sight. You look at a black hole and all your nerves scream at you that this is _wrong_. Space is supposed to be studded with stars, it's never completely and utterly black. It's _wrong_ , it's a thing that _shouldn't_ exist, that _can't_ exist, and yet it does.

 _Bajor_ 's hull groans around us as the gravitational stress increases but the SIF holds. The absolute blackness grows to encompass the whole screen and Wiggin switches to a false-color view from a different set of sensors, probably infrared, then drops a reticle on a speck faint reddish tinge amid a blaze of white from the accretion disk as we turn to starboard. "There it is," he announces. "The Verda. Making out seven life signs. I can try and simulate a visual."

The human superimposes a heavily pixellated image onto the screen. The outline is a delta-wing design with a big engine block astern and wingtip-mounted nacelles. Something's off about the image, but I'm not sure where I saw it before. It's definitely not a current Militia craft though: those wings are completely wrong for a _Verdanis_ -class logistical transport, the only Surface Arm ship big enough.

"Now what? They're _awfully_ close to the event horizon, Eleya," Gaarra notes. "No way in hell can we beam them off in all this radiation."

"Tractor beam?" Tess suggests.

He pinches his chin in concentration. " _Maybe_. If we increase the power and can come alongside, extend our warp field…" He does some quick calculations. "No, that won't work, but—" He snaps his fingers. "You know what? Extend the warp field and shields around them, I can maybe get a transporter lock after all."

"Tess?"

"Whew. Ask no small favors, eh, Captain?" She types a couple commands. "Ready on my end. Park?"

"I'll have them in two minutes; this field stress is not doing us any favors."

"Esplin, open a channel to the _Verda_ if you can."

"We're sending but I couldn't begin to tell you if they're receiving."

I switch to _Bajor'la_. "Colonel Shad, this is Colonel Kanril Eleya of the Federation Spacecraft _Bajor_. We're going to attempt to rescue you from your ship by matter transporter. Out."

"I'll be ready in thirty seconds, El," Gaarra says.

I nod and press my intercom key. "Lieutenant Gantumur, Lieutenant Connor to the command deck transporter room, please." I grab my gun belt from behind my chair and put it on, then jog to the back door to head for the transporter room.

"Ready for transport," Transporter Officer Wohtan Korbuhlo tells me as I walk in with the two blonde humans.

"Energize!"

A flash of blue light erupts from the transporter pad and seven humanoid outlines start to fade in, but then there's an electronic screech and Korbuhlo frantically scrambles across his console. "What's the fuck is happening!?" Connor yells at him.

"I'm losing the signal in the field flux, trying to compensate!" One of the humanoid outlines suddenly loses coherence and collapses to the deck as a pile of pinkish goo, but the others begin to solidify amid the showers of blue-white sparklies. "I lost one!"

"Damn it," Gantumur mutters.

The sparks finally start to fade. The first thing to become clearly visible on the leader is the red uniform of a senior unrestricted line officer, then a dark brown bob cut on a face that clearly hasn't seen any sun in a _long_ while. "Transport completed, ma'am."

"What is this?" the woman in the lead, probably Colonel Shad from the full-orb on her collar, demands. "Who are you? _Ahel Bajor'eta!_ "

"Colonel Shad Yima?"

Her expression goes from astonished to indignant. "You will address me with the proper respect, _Ke'lora_!" she snarls.

"Hey!" Connor snaps. "Back off, bi—"

"Lieutenant! Stand down!" I order in Fed Standard, holding up a hand at her without taking my eyes off of Shad. I take a breath and introduce myself in _Bajor'la_. "Colonel Shad, I'm Colonel Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starfleet."

"The Federation? Godless…"

"Clearly she hasn't met my mother," Gantumur whispers, sparking a snort from Connor.

"Per the Alphecca Convention on Conduct of Interstellar Travel we responded to your distress call and did what we could to mount a rescue. I'm sorry about your—"

"Never mind that, you claim the rank of colonel of a spacecraft as _Ke'lora_. Kendra _shak'tet_ ," she spits.

She's not even listening. Prophets, casteist and racist, what fun. "Colonel Shad, this is going to sound like a strange question but what year do you think this is?"

"' _Think_ this is'?" Now she gives me an apprehensive look. "It's Seventh Era 815, the Year of Venomous Scribes."

I squeeze my eyes shut. Worse than I thought. "Actually it's 957, the Year of Distant Travails."

"… What?"

* * *

Warragul stands beside Colonel Shad, running the hand probe of a medical tricorder over a 162 centimeter frame stripped to her undershirt. "What can a human possibly know about Bajoran health?" she mutters under her breath.

"Respectfully, ma'am," he answers, "I wouldn't be much good as chief medical officer on a ship named after your home planet if I didn't. There are one hundred forty-seven Bajorans aboard, and the only major physiological differences between you and a female of my species are some uterine quirks. Now Bolians," he adds in a thoughtful tone, "those are a real challenge."

"Hmph. And are you a godly man, Doctor Wirrpanda?"

"Godly? Well, I'm no Julian Bashir but I like to think I'm a gun surgeon."

I can't quite tell from the observation area but it looks like Colonel Shad is confused by him deliberately misunderstanding her question. And probably his slang as well: I make a mental note to have Esplin adjust the idiom filters because "gun surgeon" isn't even one _I_ know.

"What was all that nonsense about ' _clora_ ' she was shouting, Captain?" Tess asks me. "I was listening on the intercom."

"' _Ke'lora_ '," I correct her pronunciation. "Bajor used to have a caste system, the _D'jarra_. My family, actually most of the town where I grew up, are supposed to be laborers and tradesmen," and I drop air-quotes on the 'supposed to be' part. I nod in Shad's direction as Warragul draws some blood from her arm. "She's I think _Va'telo_ , the spacers and sailors, next rung up the ladder."

"More stuff from temple school?"

"Ship's library." Off her look, "What? It's twenty years since I studied any of this, and _phekk_ , now I feel old. Thanks, Tess!"

She laughs. "You're welcome, ma'am. Warragul wants us." I open the door and step into the room.

"Feeling better?" Shad glares at me. "Look, whatever you think you know about me, forget it. A lot has happened."

"Yes, I'm told Bajor has actually joined the Federation."

"We've joined the Federation but we haven't given up our identity, ma'am," Corpsman Anaala Pudos tells her from a lab console.

Shad's nose wrinkles. "You say that, _Ke'lora_ , and yet you serve under one who defied her ordained station in life."

"Hey." I grab the front of her tunic and get in her face. "Your beef is with me, Colonel; leave my crew out of it."

"You afraid I might convince them?"

"No, I'm afraid one of them might break a foot off in your ass, rank or no rank."

I hold her stare until she looks away and tries to change the subject. "That's quite a scar. Work accident?"

"Battle wound," Tess answers. "Captain's a mustang, transferred from the Militia Space Arm. Got that in a boarding action."

"Perhaps it was Their way of telling you—"

"I think the Prophets know better than you do what my station in life is, Colonel," I snap. "The Cardassians were using the _D'jarra_ to control us during the Occupation. Kai Opaka abolished it in the Year of Nine Sorrows so we'd fight _them_ instead. And, oh by the way, that's all in the Ohalu Prophecies: 'the _D'jarra_ will end with the coming of the grey warriors', Ohalu 57:12." I normally find it annoying when people quote scripture at me but let's just say this isn't the first time I've heard this load of bull.

"But you're not under occupation now."

I snort, remembering the protests against the anti-Undine raids in March; there's still an active civil rights case in sector court. "Some of us might argue with that. Just because I wear their uniform doesn't mean I agree with everything Earth does, not by a long shot."

She makes a noncommittal grunt and hops down from the hospital bed. "Where are the rest of my people?"

"Corpsman Watkins is finishing with Gunnery Sergeant Inalo through there," Warragul answers, pointing at the next room over. "We took the rest up to Ten Forward for some chow."

* * *

"So how is it we didn't have to explain the Federation to them?" Biri asks me as we watch the six survivors of the _Verda_. They're huddled sullenly around a table eating replicated hasperat and deka tea, glaring at their Andorian minder from Security and the ten or so Bajorans from my own crew in service blacks or greys elsewhere in the lounge.

I swallow my own bite of hasperat and wash it down with a swig of Romulan ale as Biri explains. "The date she gave, 815 of the Seventh Era, that's 2271 according to the computer. About a year after USS _Enterprise_ ran across a convoy headed to the colony on Pillagra."

"Kirk again? Really?" Gaarra chuckles. "Guy really got around."

"Mmm, in more ways than one." I hide a smile behind my glass of ale.

"What are you saying, ma'am?" Lieutenant Gantumur asks from next to us at the bar.

"Well, let's say Dr. McCoy's the reason there's a cure for banta fever." Gaarra sprays a mouthful of cola out his nose and nearly falls over laughing.

" _Thanks_ , Commander!" Nalak Lang grumbles at him, picking up a rag and throwing it at him.

"I'm… missing something funny," Biri says, looking from him to me. "Wait, is banta fever—"

"An STD? Yes, it is."

My combadge chirps as Biri valiantly fails to stifle her giggles. "Kanril."

" _It's Tess. Master Chief Wiggin and I have found something; we need you on the bridge._ "

"Be there in two. Lang, sober pill." The old Cardassian tosses me a foil packet, and I give Gaarra a quick peck on the lips as I go by; he brushes my cheek scar with his hand.

As I reach the door I glance back at the Militiamens' table. Colonel Shad's executive officer is staring at me with an interesting shade of purple on his face.

Oh yeah. Gaarra's technically _Mi'tino_ , higher caste than either of us. How 'bout that?

* * *

"Whatcha got?"

Wiggin points at an image of the _Verda_ , higher resolution than the last time. "This is just a simulation, Captain; the ship's structural integrity field gave out fifteen minutes ago. The _Verda_ was a _Karaya_ -class patrol cruiser. Nothing fancy: capable of warp 4.3, basic nav deflector, but she carried a pair of five-kilo coilguns fore and aft."

"Right, I know; we bought energy weapons tech from the Ferengi later. So?"

"So I managed to get a good composite scan and piece together enough data. She was hit hard by a far more capable ship; my guess is they fled into the black hole's gravity well to escape pursuit and couldn't climb back out."

"That jibes with what Colonel Shad said when I interviewed her," Tess agrees.

"Yes, and what she said in her distress signal. So?"

"So, _this_." He highlights two sections of the scan and blows them up on splitscreen. "One, whoever hit them was using class-3 disruptors."

I may not be a scientist, but I know weapons. That means Breen, Klingon, or Romulan, in that order given our location in the Alpha Quadrant. "What else?"

"It looks like they were able to return fire: there's at least four rounds missing from the chase magazine."

"Okay, so… Oh." I slap my combadge. "Kanril to Lieutenant Gantumur."

" _Ma'am?_ "

"Put Colonel Shad on for me."

" _Wait one._ "

" _This is Colonel Shad._ "

"Colonel Shad, you were attacked by an alien ship, right?" Because of course we use the same word for "foreigner" as for "not biologically Bajoran".

" _Unprovoked,_ " she confirms. " _They refused our offer to surrender, called us 'honorless cowards', and pursued us into the anomaly._ "

"Do you think you hit them at all?"

There's a muffled exchange back and forth in _Bajor'ara_ between her and another of the women. " _Gunny Inalo believes she landed a solid hit on their starboard nacelle; that's why we were able to get away long enough to lose them._ "

"Get up here. Please," I add after a moment. "Lieutenant Park, hard about and take us back to the black hole. Tess, sound battle stations, just in case the Klingons are still in a bad mood."

"Klingons, ma'am?" she queries as she hits the combat alert siren.

"You know anybody else who talks like that?" I point out. "Even Romulans will accept a surrender even if they don't usually ask for it." Tess grunts noncommittally. "Ensign, apprise Starfleet Command of our intentions, and cee-cee the Klingon embassy and Temporal Investigations."

"Comms, aye," Esplin confirms.

Gaarra, Shad, and Security Officer th'Shraak join us on the bridge as the black hole comes into view. That feeling of wrongness comes back as the accretion disc looms over us. "Master Chief, prepare an antiproton sweep."

"No need, Captain. I have a D-7D _Akif_ -class battlecruiser off our starboard bow low, quarter a light-minute and closing. Looks like they were lying doggo in the accretion disk. I have a visual, compensating for redshift."

The cruiser's a little further in the accretion disk, its hull sparkling as the SIF strains under the gravitational well. Colonel Shad hisses. "That's the alien warship. I'd know it anywhere."

I nod at that. "I figured as much. Esplin, open a hailing channel."

"Just let me counter for the redshift…" The screen goes white for a moment, then shows a grainy picture of a Klingon warship's bridge—old-fashioned, with a more open design than the more recent raptors and birds-of-prey. The captain is a youngish man with a crisp goatee and more forehead corrugations than a tin roof.

"Klingon warship, this is Captain Kanril Eleya of the Federation Starship Bajor. I am requesting that you power down your weapons and cease hostilities, in preparation for rescue."

The Klingon laughs roughly. "HA! Finally the Federation sends a fresh opponent! Let us hope that your women are better fighters than your feeble Captain Kirk, for THIS time, Krell, son of Mok'tar, shall show no mercy!"

"Um, who are you?" Probably not the most diplomatic option, but I'm genuinely confused; I've never heard of this guy before, and he acts like I should know him.

The man sneers. "You do not know of the mighty Krell, son of Mok'tar, Conqueror of Neural, warrior of the Klingon Empire? Then I will teach you!"

I roll my eyes. "Bring it, _targh puqloD_. If you've got that much of a death wish." He can't possibly be _that_ stupid, but maybe I can—

Krell, son of Mok'tar, Conqueror of somewhere I really don't care about, splutters with rage and turns to his gunner. "OPEN FIRE! Burn them into ashes!"

Oh, he _is_ that stupid.

"Forward shields down one half of one percent and regenerating," Gaarra reports in a bored tone a moment later, loud enough the Klingons can hear it.

Krell's sneer slowly melts into something more like impotent rage as he processes that we're just sitting here unharmed. "You… Korlok! I said BURN THEM INTO ASHES, damn you!" Another Klingon protests something about maximum power and he can't explain it.

I look up from inspecting my nails and look behind him to the bridge crew, shifting into _tlhIngan Hol_. "Whichever of you is the first officer, your captain's mindless bloodlust has gotten you all time-dilated almost a hundred forty years into your future. Your ship was the equal of the _Constitution_ -class heavy cruiser; this ship was launched _last year_ and fulfills the tactical role of the _Federation_ -class dreadnought. There is no chance of you doing anything but waste my time. Was it not _qeylIs ta'_ himself who said, 'Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat'?"

The alleged conqueror of some planet with a stupid name punches the console in front of him with rage, sending up a shower of sparks. "Damn you, Federation bitch! How dare you steal the words of Kahless! I will cut your sister's heart out with a baghneQ! I will spit upon the corpse of your father as I slit your mother's throat over the graves of your ancestors!"

OK, that's it. _Nobody_ threatens my family. "Tess?"

"Steady, Captain," she murmurs as the Klingons fire again and I start to bark the order that I've given so often for three years straight. The order I've always delivered decisively and with conviction.

The order to kill.

"You said it yourself, they're no threat."

Kill.

Kill.

But the order won't come.

Wait. _Phekk_ me, Krell's from 140 years in the past. He doesn't know who my family even is, probably barely even knows what my _species_ is.

So why in the Prophets' unknowable names do I want him dead so bad?

Duty, or bloodlust?

I glance at Colonel Shad, looking worried as the Klingons pound ineffectually on the shields. They fly by and Park turns hard about.

 _Sher hahr kosst._ I'm as bad as _she_ is. As bad as _them_.

No. No. I refuse. I won't be that person. "Tess, hold your fire."

"Holding fire."

"Esplin, give me the comms again." She waves me on. "Captain Krell, this is Captain Kanril. Are you finished yet? Because if you keep that up you're just going overstress your SIF and the black hole will do the rest."

" _Korlok! Divert engine power to disruptors! Wait, what are you—Get back to your station!_ "

"Captain," Wiggin announces, "reading a shift in the enemy ship: they're powering down weapons, maintaining course out of the gravity well."

A new voice comes in on the channel. " _Krell, son of Mok'tar, as first officer I, Korlok, son of Yonko, stand for the crew, and I say that you are unfit to serve as captain. You have put this ship at foolish risk and gotten us all lost and forgotten, and I challenge you for command!_ "

"We're gonna need popcorn," Biri remarks. I turn to stare at her incredulously. "What?"

I start to say something I'm sure was going to be deep and profound, but my combadge chirps before I can get the words out. "Kanril here."

" _Ma'am, this is Lieutenant Gantumur. I'm in the officers' gym with Lieutenant Connor and Major Hano from the Verda. You said to tell you immediately if one of our guests stepped into the ring with Lieutenant Connor?_ "

Oh no. "What happened, Lieutenant?" I turn to Shad. "Major Hano's your XO, right?" She nods.

" _Major Hano said some disrespectful things about you after you and Gaarra left, Captain, and Connor took offense. Should I let it play or pull her out?_ "

"Stop them. Now. And tell Connor the order comes from me." Having one of our guests turn up with a broken spine will mean way too many interesting questions.

" _Assault Chief, aye._ "

I turn to Tess, shaking my head. "It never goes smooth. Why doesn't it ever go smooth?"

She snorts. "Milk run, my blue behind."

"Well, I see that much at least hasn't changed." I glance at Shad. "Well, what was it that General Vasa Lakrem said? 'No plan ever survives deployment.'"

"We have a saying like that, on Earth, too, ma'am," Lieutenant Park says as I crack up.

* * *

The running lights of Deep Space 9 glitter in the distance as we drop out of warp six days later, and Captain Kurland greets us over comm as we enter the holding pattern. "An agent from the Department of Temporal Investigations will be meeting you dockside, Colonel Shad, and we have a team ready to assist you and your people any way you need."

"How about a time machine so I can go back to when the world made sense," she mutters next to me.

"Sorry, Colonel, I didn't catch that; you have to look at the screen when you're talking."

"It's all right, Captain Kurland," I tell him, "it wasn't important. If you're free, you want to grab dinner at the Klingon restaurant later?"

"Bring Commander Reshek along, we'll make it a double-date with my girlfriend."

I stare at him. "Prophets, does the whole damn service know about us?"

He laughs. "We'll have an opening for you to dock in an hour five."

"I'll see you there. Bajor out." The image winks out, leaving the spokes of the station visible in the background. Colonel Shad turns to look at me questioningly. "Yes?"

"I don't get you, Colonel Kanril. The Klingons threaten you, your crew, your family, and you rescue them and go out and eat at a Klingon restaurant?"

"They're not all like that. Kaga, the owner? Overgrown hara kitten, the sweetest guy you'll ever meet."

"I guess all _Ke'lora_ aren't the same, either. You handle your ship like a born _Va'telo_."

From her, I guess that passes for a compliment. "Listen, Shad? If life under the Cardassians taught us anything, it's that we each have a role in protecting our freedom, and you can't begin to guess it by what you're born to. It's a new world, a new galaxy, and the Prophets will find you a place in it."

"That's easy for you to say," she mutters bitterly. I raise an eyebrow. "Kanril, I am over a century out of my time. I had a husband, two sons and a daughter; my whole family is _dead_!"

"Actually, that's not quite correct." I pick up a PADD and pass it to her. "I took the liberty of having my security chief Lieutenant Korekh check your genetics against our databases. You have at least 37 living descendants, including three heroes of the Resistance, and a very important great-great-grandson: Shad Ona, Militia Surface Arm Field Colonel, retired, First Minister of Bajor from 2388 to 2392, and now Federation Secretary of the Exterior." I fight back a grin as her mouth gapes open. "And there's always going to be a call for starship crew. Just let me give you some advice?"

"Yes?"

"You ever use the phrase 'Kendra _shak'tet_ ' again and I'll throw you out the airlock."

She actually laughs. "Fair enough."

I reach for my PADD. "Did you catch all that, Captain Korlok?" We've got his D-7 under tow; he didn't trust us enough to send over a repair crew but he did let us send the medics.

"I did, _qanrIl HoD_. It will be a pleasure to see the First City again; this voyage has been long enough."

I look at his face on the image on my PADD. Krell did a number on him before Korlok took him out; Warragul grew him a new eyeball but he insisted on keeping the scars.

Funny, one of them goes right across his left cheek.


End file.
